Obama Russian foreign policy: What doesn't Marco Rubio understand

President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on 20 Russian citizens as well as a bank linked to Moscow's move to annex Ukraine's Crimea region. There has been deep international tension since the referendum. Even as President Obama announced...

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Marco Rubio criticizes the Obama foreign policy toward Russia that is dependent upon incremental sanctions scaled to Vladimir Putin’s moves against the Ukraine. Rubio believes that Obama’s policies are too reactionary, and that Putin isn’t phased by them.

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Obama explains that the idea behind sanctions is to hurt those around Putin financially so that they will pressure Putin to change course. The reason for this approach is to avoid penalizing innocent Russian people as much as possible, as the aim is to befriend Russia again, eventually.

Rubio and other Republicans believe that approach is naive. However, what Rubio and Republican hawks don’t seem to understand is that the European Union has a large stake in the Russian relationship as they are dependent upon Russian oil and trade. The president has been empathetic, prudent, and consultative in formulating policy while attempting to give Putin a way to stand down. These are very sensitive times diplomatically, and public criticism from Congressional leaders are not helpful, and may be damaging.

Marco Rubio does not have a resume with qualifications and credentials to address the subject. He is a professional politician without portfolio. The longer he stays in public office, the weaker he becomes, not stronger.

“Our hope is that we should not have to use them. We are not interested in punishing the Russian people. We do think that Mr. Putin and his leadership circle are taking bad decisions and unnecessary decisions and he needs to be dissuaded from his current course,” Obama said.

A more mature and productive approach would be for the GOP to engage the President as partners in the process.

“President Obama talks tough about Vladimir Putin. But his actions have not gone far enough to change Putin’s calculation that the benefits of his aggression outweigh the costs,” said Republican Senator Marco Rubio.

Last week, Senate Republicans introduced a bill that would subject Russian banks and other key economic sectors to U.S. penalties.

“Our economic well-being is deeply dependent on our national security. The problem is that President Obama does not seem to understand this. Instead of shaping world events, he has often simply reacted to them,” Rubio said.

However, Obama is not ruling out elements of the Republican proposal.”

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James A. George has over 25 years of experience working in the government consulting space with many years interacting with Congressional staff and government executives as a program manager and executive in developing policies. He was liaison between the Office of Secretary of Defense and the Aerospace Industries Association addressing standards for electronic commerce. He has written hundreds of papers and a book titled Smart Data, Enterprise Performance Optimization Strategy (c)2010 Wiley Publishing. He has published columns titled "The American Political System" and wrote a new book titled How to Select and American President (c)2011 All Rights Reserved.